Enactment of law represents third time Oklahoma has tried to restrict women’s access to medication used to end a pregnancy in its earliest stages

04.22.14 - (PRESS
RELEASE) Less than a year after the courts overturned Oklahoma’s attempt to ban
safe and legal medication abortion in the state, Governor Mary Fallin signed
into law today restrictions on women’s access to a non-surgical method of
ending a pregnancy in its earliest stages using medication.

House Bill
2684, which is scheduled to take effect on November 1 of this year, will deny
women a newer, evidence-based regimen for medication abortion that has been
proven safer, more effective, and less expensive than the outdated protocol
mandated under the law. The bill forces women seeking medication abortion
in Oklahoma to take three times more medication than necessary—potentially
resulting in more side effects—and bans them altogether from choosing medication
abortion after 49 days of pregnancy, forcing them to undergo a surgical
procedure when they otherwise would have the option of a safe abortion using
medications alone.

Said
Nancy Northup, president and CEO with the Center for Reproductive Rights:

“Oklahoma
politicians have yet again proven they are hell-bent on restricting women’s
access to a safe and proven method of ending a pregnancy at its earliest
stages, substituting their own ideologies for years of scientific research and
the expertise of medical professionals worldwide.

“Courts
time and again have found these restrictions unconstitutional, and yet Oklahoma
politicians refuse to give up their costly crusade of choking off access to
safe, legal abortion care.

“It
should not take a series of court orders to convince these politicians to
reevaluate their priorities and refocus their energy on making laws that truly
protect women’s health, safety, and dignity.”

This is the
third time in the past four years Oklahoma politicians have passed legislation restricting
women’s access to medication abortion in the state. The Center for
Reproductive Rights filed
a legal challenge in October 2011 against a bill that entirely banned
medication abortion. The US Supreme Court eventually refused
to hear the case, allowing the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision
permanently blocking
the law from taking effect to stand. The highest court in the state
concluded that a requirement to follow the outdated protocol “is so completely
at odds with the standard that governs the practice of medicine that it can
serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to
punish and discriminate against those who do.”

Women in the
United States have been safely and legally using medication abortion for over a
decade, with one in four women who make the decision to end a pregnancy in the
first nine weeks choosing this method. These types of restrictions ignore
years of doctor’s practical experience and scientific advancement, forcing
providers to prescribe the medication with an inferior, outdated, and less
effective protocol.

“Physicians
know better than politicians how to best treat their patients,” said Northup,
“and medical decisions should be made according to their advice and expertise,
not any politician’s ideological agenda.”

Harmful and
unconstitutional restrictions like HB 2684 these further underscore the need
for the federal Women’s
Health Protection Act (S. 1696/H.R. 3471)—a bill that would prohibit states
like Oklahoma from imposing unconstitutional restrictions on reproductive
health care providers that apply to no similar medical care, interfere with
women’s personal decision making, and block access to safe and legal abortion
services.